March 6, 2025
Jeanne Silverthorne
They Will Be Like Shadows
Shoshana Wayne Gallery
January 11 - March 22, 2025
Jeanne Silverthorne
Visiting Jeanne Silverthorne's exhibition They Will Be Like Shadows during the recent Los Angeles fires influenced the interpretation of the works. Her platinum silicone rubber and mixed media sculptures — some figurative, others referencing the body — alluded to death and destruction paralleling real time events. Seeing Banshee (Self-Portrait at 73) (2023), a life-like, off white sculpture of a woman (the artist) stretched out on the gallery floor sent shivers down my spine. Here, Silverthorne recreates her aging body, devoid of color but full of detail: untied sneakers on crossed feet, gray synthetic hair and black rimmed glasses flanking her complacent face. In Too Dumbly in My Being Pent (2023) we see the same figure, now in fragments and stuffed into a cardboard box lined with bubble wrap suggesting the sculpture will be shipped and/or stored somewhere out of sight. In keeping with Silverthorne's practice, the figure as well as the box and wrappings are all intricately fabricated casts. Silverthorne is a master with her chosen material (platinum silicone rubber) and can fabricate and transform just about anything of any size with acute veracity.
The exhibition unfolds as a narrative on life and loss and an artist's practice as it relates to the rest of the world. The pieces are fragile and sturdy simultaneously. Because Silverthorne has such a command of her materials, the works are also minimal and maximal: they feel alive though they are not "real." In the disconcerting sculpture And the Unfathomable Night of Dreams Began (2022), a tiny, sleeping baby wearing a knitted cap rests on a white cloud that resembles an enlarged wad of chewing gum, cake frosting or a billowing cloud, depending on one's interpretation.
In Silverthorne's trajectory the infant grows and becomes a child. Children's sneakers appear in Crate with Sneaker, In My Mother's House and Double Sneakers ('The Three Sillies') (all 2023). In Crate with Sneaker Silverthorne completely fashions from rubber, a four-foot high wooden crate. The otherwise empty container holds one small black sneaker at its base. As the disembodied foot is its only contents, the takeaway is unsettling. The narrative progresses: the child becomes an adult. Silverthorne not only depicts herself in the aforementioned (Self-Portrait at 73), but also her mother in two other works. The evocative small-scale table-top sculptures Mom Under a Cloud II (2024) and Mom on Book (2023) are richly impactful. In Mom Under a Cloud II, Silverthorne's mother is seated on top of a pile of crates that might also suggest coffins. This exacting figure leans forward, one arm across her lap, the other below her chin as if lost in thought. Above her head, a floating cloud magically hovers.
For Mom on Book, Silverthorne's mother stands on a hardcover volume of a book of fairy tales. The closed book sits on a pedestal. It has white pages and a black cover. Its title (365 Fairy Tales) appears as raised letters on the spine. The implication in this quasi-narrative could be a mother reading from the book to her growing child before the mother is consumed by the clouds (referencing Mom Under a Cloud II).
Hanging Question Mark (2020) in many ways sums up the experience. Here, Silverthorne suspends a large, black, three dimensional rubber question mark from the ceiling so that the circular punctuation point sits on top of a tall rubber crate. The excess rubber rope loops over pipes in the ceiling and rests on the floor behind the crate. As viewers try to make sense of the various elements, the work remains ambiguous and absurd. When seen in relation to the empty quotation marks of Quotes (2021), which bracket empty space on the wall, it becomes evident that Silverthorne is playing with language and inviting viewers to think metaphorically as they interweave the various aspects of the installation.
They Will Be Like Shadows
Shoshana Wayne Gallery
January 11 - March 22, 2025
Jeanne Silverthorne
Visiting Jeanne Silverthorne's exhibition They Will Be Like Shadows during the recent Los Angeles fires influenced the interpretation of the works. Her platinum silicone rubber and mixed media sculptures — some figurative, others referencing the body — alluded to death and destruction paralleling real time events. Seeing Banshee (Self-Portrait at 73) (2023), a life-like, off white sculpture of a woman (the artist) stretched out on the gallery floor sent shivers down my spine. Here, Silverthorne recreates her aging body, devoid of color but full of detail: untied sneakers on crossed feet, gray synthetic hair and black rimmed glasses flanking her complacent face. In Too Dumbly in My Being Pent (2023) we see the same figure, now in fragments and stuffed into a cardboard box lined with bubble wrap suggesting the sculpture will be shipped and/or stored somewhere out of sight. In keeping with Silverthorne's practice, the figure as well as the box and wrappings are all intricately fabricated casts. Silverthorne is a master with her chosen material (platinum silicone rubber) and can fabricate and transform just about anything of any size with acute veracity.
The exhibition unfolds as a narrative on life and loss and an artist's practice as it relates to the rest of the world. The pieces are fragile and sturdy simultaneously. Because Silverthorne has such a command of her materials, the works are also minimal and maximal: they feel alive though they are not "real." In the disconcerting sculpture And the Unfathomable Night of Dreams Began (2022), a tiny, sleeping baby wearing a knitted cap rests on a white cloud that resembles an enlarged wad of chewing gum, cake frosting or a billowing cloud, depending on one's interpretation.
In Silverthorne's trajectory the infant grows and becomes a child. Children's sneakers appear in Crate with Sneaker, In My Mother's House and Double Sneakers ('The Three Sillies') (all 2023). In Crate with Sneaker Silverthorne completely fashions from rubber, a four-foot high wooden crate. The otherwise empty container holds one small black sneaker at its base. As the disembodied foot is its only contents, the takeaway is unsettling. The narrative progresses: the child becomes an adult. Silverthorne not only depicts herself in the aforementioned (Self-Portrait at 73), but also her mother in two other works. The evocative small-scale table-top sculptures Mom Under a Cloud II (2024) and Mom on Book (2023) are richly impactful. In Mom Under a Cloud II, Silverthorne's mother is seated on top of a pile of crates that might also suggest coffins. This exacting figure leans forward, one arm across her lap, the other below her chin as if lost in thought. Above her head, a floating cloud magically hovers.
For Mom on Book, Silverthorne's mother stands on a hardcover volume of a book of fairy tales. The closed book sits on a pedestal. It has white pages and a black cover. Its title (365 Fairy Tales) appears as raised letters on the spine. The implication in this quasi-narrative could be a mother reading from the book to her growing child before the mother is consumed by the clouds (referencing Mom Under a Cloud II).
Hanging Question Mark (2020) in many ways sums up the experience. Here, Silverthorne suspends a large, black, three dimensional rubber question mark from the ceiling so that the circular punctuation point sits on top of a tall rubber crate. The excess rubber rope loops over pipes in the ceiling and rests on the floor behind the crate. As viewers try to make sense of the various elements, the work remains ambiguous and absurd. When seen in relation to the empty quotation marks of Quotes (2021), which bracket empty space on the wall, it becomes evident that Silverthorne is playing with language and inviting viewers to think metaphorically as they interweave the various aspects of the installation.